Interviewing Vida Cruz-Borja

Hellooo!

Last week I reviewed the great short fiction collection Song of the Mango and Other New Myths by Vida Cruz-Borja this is a really good mix of science fiction, fanatsy and a dash of horror all told with a focus on Filipino culture and myth. I was very lucky to get the chance to ask Vida some questions about the collection and what else we can look forward to in the future.

How do you like to booktempt people to read Song of the Mango and Other New Myths?

If you like your mythology, your supernatural oddities, and your tropes served with a side of Filipino sensibilities, then this may be the book for you!

With the focus on New Myths in the title how important is it for you to create a new story even if there is an aspect of other myths and traditions being used?

When I first dove into Philippine mythology, I noticed that there were so many versions of the same myth—but each version was also considered as a myth. So, I came to see each version as each region’s own take on particular subject matter; even if they never reference each other, they are still in dialogue with one another. In the same sense, the stories I create—whether anyone’d consider them “new” or not when there is nothing new under the sun—are in dialogue with the myths and traditions that came before them (especially if they’re straight-up retellings). The nature of the dialogue is dependent on what I have said with the story I’ve written, juxtaposed with what came before—whether what came before is a story I wrote in the same world (“Song of the Mango” and “Voices in the Air”), a funny book skewering an entire genre (Dianna Wynne Jones’s Tough Guide to Fantasyland and “Chosen Mother”), a retelling of a popular fairy tale (“Beauty and the Beast” and “Odd and Ugly”), or simply my use of characters from Philippine mythology (“Have Your #Hugot Harvested at This Diwata-Owned Café,” “First Play for and by Tikbalang Triggers Uproar on Opening Night,” and “In the Shadow of the Typhoon, Humans and Mahiwaga Cooperate for Survival”).

As your short fiction has been evolved over time do you feel there is a connection between your stories as certain characters or ideas do re-appear?

It’s been pointed out to me by someone who’s been watching my work evolve that my current work keeps building on what came before. In terms of music, the first-ever chapbook I released contained two stories (a single); the second one add two more to the existing stories (an EP); and my short story collection, with fifteen stories in all, can be considered a full-length album. In my life, since I can’t go back in time and do certain events over, I tend to re-visit beliefs that I no longer hold because I’ve modified or updated them with accrued life experience. It makes sense that I do this in fiction as well; it’s intentional on my part that some characters, themes, and ideas re-appear because I’m older, wiser, a bit better at craft, and want to do some ideas differently this time around. The connection in my stories, then, is that they’re all evolutions of something or other. 

The stories move from genre and format across the collection -  does the idea for the story structure come along with the idea for the plot?

I operate best through questions and it seems that the question that answers yours is, “How do I best say what I want to say?” And sometimes that means the plot goes first, sometimes it means the story structure goes first. With my series of newspaper article stories, the structure definitely goes first and I find a plot to fit it. But with stories of mine like “Call of the Rimefolk” or “To Megan with Half My Heart” or “Ink: A Love Story,” the plot definitely arrived in my mind first and I experimented with different forms to tell the different parts.

Which story was the hardest to write?

That has got to be the titular story, “Song of the Mango.” I wrote the first draft in two weeks during my stint at Clarion in 2014. What it became over the next two years was influenced by some very dark events in my life, during which I wrote a novella version of this story as a coping mechanism as well as an outlet for all the rage I felt. That novella hasn’t found a publisher, but the short story version has (Lontar: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction vol. 10). I am proud of what it is today, but I also cannot bring myself to read it again, as it will transport me back to the person I was at the time I wrote it—and I’m not sure yet that I’ve learned to like that person.

What is the Filipino Science Fiction and Fantasy scene like? Are there any other writers we should be exploring?

It’s a very young scene! Writing fantasy and science fiction wasn’t considered “respectable” among older, more established writers until perhaps the 2010s. Since then, many more writers of fiction, comics, and TTRPGs have made the scene as rich as it is. We kind of tend to compartmentalize ourselves into our different mediums, but when I think about all the work that’s being done across mediums for local SFF, I think the scene is vibrant and burgeoning. For writers of fiction, I recommend Isabel Yap, Sigrid Gayangos, Gabriela Lee, Mia Tijam, Elaine Cuyegkeng, Yvette Tan, Kate Osias, Eliza Victoria, Victor Ocampo, and Dean and Nikki Alfar.

What else can we look forward to from you in the future and where can we find out more?

I’m currently putting together a book of writing craft articles while juggling a novel in progress that I’m describing as The Wild Swans x Howl’s Moving Castle x pre-colonial Philippines. Other than that, I’ll be on several panels at Flights of Foundry in April. You can keep updated on my doings on Twitter (@laviecestmoi) or my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/vidacruz).

If there was one book, not your own that you wish you could get everyone to read what would it be and why?

Just one? Oh man, that’s hard. (yes I am evil) But it’d have to be Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses simply because finding new ways to do writing craft is where my brain is at these days!